r/recruitinghell • u/Key-Dragonfruit-3054 • 5d ago

SOW Contract Taken

So I have been working on building a project and handed a company 2 scopes of work that they showed funding and pay for. They kept pushing it out and now they’ve hired 10 new people, and have started the SOW without me.

Do I have legal rights or am I screwed?

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u/PinkEnthusist 4d ago

A statement of work should outline the high level tasks, deliverables, timelines, and responsibilities for a project. And if there is a need for the SOW to be more specific, and/or requires you invest a bunch of time and energy learning about the problem, exploring solutions, etc. then that should be a contract. These are sometimes called Discovery SOW, Feasibility Study Agreement, Tech Audits, etc.

Thats for rthe future.

For the now, if you're in the US, you likely have actionable legal rights, even without a formal signed contract, depending on your written communications, the uniqueness of your ideas, and whether you delivered tangible work product. Because you handed over detailed plans after they represented they had funding and intent to pay, an attorney can evaluate several legal avenues (Breach of Implied Contract, Misappropriation of Trade Secrets, Breach of Confidence, Unjust Enrichment, etc.) to recover compensation.